A departure from the author’s contemporary settings, this historical novel blends an engaging story about likable main characters with the context and culture that led to the Mayflower pilgrims settling Plimouth Plantation. Set in Holland in 1614, 12-year-old Lizzy and her parents have joined a group of Separatists who fled England and the Church with William Brewster and settled in Leiden to practice their religious beliefs. When her parents died, Master Brewster took Lizzy in, but her talkative nature and willful spirit got her into trouble with his strict religious practices. When she hires herself out as a cook and kitchen helper, a young mischievous boy cleverly gets her a job, after tricking her into grabbing a windmill sail to save him. Constantly sketching with chalk and refusing to tell his name, the boy overhears two King’s men asking at the printing shop about Master Brewster. Lizzy breaks rules to alert Brewster of the danger (he’s writing subversive tracts) and disobeys by not telling when her friend and his brother escape from their brutal jobs at the wool mill. The title (where the Brewsters live) and the cover with a Pippi Longstocking–looking girl clinging to a windmill sail will draw kids in while colorful and “flavorful” depictions of the times when baths were rare and eating eel was a treat will enjoyably gross them out. Many readers will not foresee the build-up to the identity of the boy artist—Rembrandt—and the device works well. An afterword details the historical facts and cites how Gilson envisioned both the real characters and the ones she invented. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-688-17864-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
Fade to black and cue the applause!
From Selznick’s ever-generative mind comes a uniquely inventive story told in text, sequential art and period photographs and film.
Orphaned Hugo survives secretly in a Parisian train station (circa 1930). Obsessed with reconstructing a broken automaton, Hugo is convinced that it will write a message from his father that will save his life. Caught stealing small mechanical repair parts from the station’s toy shop, Hugo’s life intersects with the elderly shop owner and his goddaughter, Isabelle. The children are drawn together in solving the linked mysteries of the automaton and the identity of the artist, illusionist and pioneer filmmaker, Georges Méliès, long believed dead. Discovering that Isabelle’s godfather is Méliès, the two resurrect his films, his reputation and assure Hugo’s future. Opening with cinematic immediacy, a series of drawings immerses readers in Hugo’s mysterious world. Exquisitely chosen art sequences are sometimes stopped moments, sometimes moments of intense action and emotion. The book, an homage to early filmmakers as dreammakers, is elegantly designed to resemble the flickering experience of silent film melodramas.
Fade to black and cue the applause! (notes, film credits) (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-439-81378-6
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
Narrator Saint is a gifted clarinetist with Juilliard dreams and a soft spot for Shadow, a black Lab mix he longs to fully...
This gripping addition to the growing body of fiction portraying Katrina’s profound effect on children and families pits an 11-year-old boy, a neighborhood dog and an elderly woman against the hurricane and subsequent devastating flood.
Narrator Saint is a gifted clarinetist with Juilliard dreams and a soft spot for Shadow, a black Lab mix he longs to fully claim. Families flee Tremé, but Saint’s mom, a dedicated hospital social worker, toils overtime as Katrina homes in. Pops arranges for Saint to evacuate with Uncle Hugo’s family, but Shadow—to Saint’s tearful dismay—runs off. Shadow’s pivotal in the plotting, as Saint slips back into town to find him. Fate tosses boy and dog in with stubborn neighbor Miz Moran, who’s evaded her own relatives in order to remain at home. Their attic confinement is a study in contrasts: The woman’s good planning yields battery-operated fans and freeze-dried ice cream, but unplanned-for issues include her worsening health and dog poop. Saint bests the flooded house to retrieve Miz Moran’s insulin; the lady’s casual admission that her three heart attacks “was mild ones” ratchets tension. Woods’ marvelous characterizations of Saint and Miz Moran more than stand up to the vivid backdrop of the flooded, chaotic city. Shadow’s credulity-straining heroics will please kids.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25507-6
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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